


stood on my roof and tried to see you (forgetting about me)

by epilogues



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:01:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: what pete never considered was the way the world keeps turning after you leave it





	stood on my roof and tried to see you (forgetting about me)

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt on tumblr: "and slowly. . . i was forgotten." (from anonymous)

Exactly one month after a long list of fights, sleepless nights, and impulsive decisions that ended with him signing his own ticket to the afterlife he read so much about, Pete finds a door in the nothingness he has become accustomed to and opens it without hesitation.

It takes him home.

It takes him home, and Pete's too excited about the prospect of being back, about being handed a second chance, to think that people don't just come back from the dead.

The first thing Pete hears after he dies is Patrick. It's simultaneously the best and worst sound he's ever heard, the best because it's  _ Patrick  _ and the worst because he's crying. 

Pete blinks his eyes open and realizes that he's in the apartment he had shared with Patrick until he. . . left.

Shaking his head a little, Pete heads into the kitchen to find Patrick sitting at the table with his head in his hands, shoulders shaking.Hemmy is curled up at Patrick's feet, head on his paws and looking forlorn.

“Patrick? Patrick, it's me, I'm here,” Pete says, quickly moving to put a hand on Patrick's arm, but Patrick doesn't move.

“Patrick,” Pete repeats, voice growing worried. He reaches out to brush a loose strand of Patrick's hair behind his ear, except. Except Pete's hand goes right through it.

Pete withdraws his hand slowly. “Fuck,” he whispers. He should have realized sooner that he wouldn't just get plopped back into life, good as new. “ _ Fuck. _ ”

Patrick, meanwhile, has no idea that his dead best friend/boyfriend/soulmate is standing right next to him, and Pete just has to stand helplessly and watch as the younger man stubbornly rubs his eyes and gets up, making a cup of coffee with a lot more slamming of cabinets than necessary.

“Patrick. . .” Pete murmurs, even though he knows it's useless, and he regrets leaving him, regrets never finding the courage to tell anyone outside of their closest circles about his and Patrick's relationship, regrets every stupid, stupid choice that's led him here.

* * *

Pete spends the next few weeks in the apartment, avoiding Patrick as much as possible because his puffy eyes and exhausted gaze are too much. Andy and Joe and a couple other friends from the label stop by, bringing casseroles and condolences, and Pete turns away from them too. He knows what he did was selfish, and he doesn't want to have to see the effects on his friends and family.

He tries to tap into the ghostly powers every spirit in movies has, but no matter how hard he concentrates, Pete can't even swish a curtain. Patrick remains oblivious to his  presence. Despite the myths that animals are more attuned to the supernatural, not even Hemmy reacts to a single one of his many attempts at contact.

Pete does discover that he can go through walls, hover a bit if he wants, and has yet to need sleep or food, but all of that's irrelevant because it doesn't help him get to Patrick.

Pete's not sure if he can leave the apartment, or what the rules are with all of that, and he hasn't investigated. Where would he even go? His grave? No, he's fine where he is, he supposes.

As much as it hurts to watch Patrick grieve, Pete admits to himself late one night that at least he's missed. The almost satisfaction of the realization makes Pete sick to his stomach.

“I'm sorry,” he tells Patrick's sleeping form. “I'm so sorry. I love you.”

Patrick, of course, doesn't answer, and Pete sighs at the carefully turned around picture of him and Patrick on the nightstand.

* * *

The next morning, though, Pete starts to pick up on something new. Joe stops by early, looking only slightly better off than Patrick, and they sit on the couch and watch mindless TV while eating the donuts Joe brought.

“Everyone's clamoring for a statement, you know,” Joe says carefully during a commercial break. “It's been two months, and we're all still as messed up as you, but FBR’s only going to get worse with time.”

Patrick turns away immediately. “Fuck them. We're human, we're not just here to stand in front of the camera and say our lines.”

“I know,” Joe replies, and he slowly reaches out and places a hand on Patrick's shoulder. Pete, who's been sitting in the corner letting his heart break with each word, blinks. That's not typical Joe behavior. “I'm not saying it has to be, like, tomorrow, man, just at some point.”

Patrick nods. “I. Okay. At some point.” He closes his eyes and leans his cheek against Joe's hand for a split second before sitting up like he's been burned. “Sorry, I'm just.”

“It's cool, dude,” says Joe, patting Patrick's shoulder gently a couple of times so he can remove his hand naturally. “Sorry.”

_ Oh,  _ thinks Pete. Because he can't pretend that he didn't see the looks they gave each other some nights back in the van. But he's just overthinking, probably. He sighs and half-heartedly attempts to push the pillow sitting next to him over. It doesn't budge.

* * *

 

Another month passes, then another. To Pete, time feels less like something he's living in and more like something he's traveling parallel to.

Patrick's starting to stand up straighter, he actually leaves the house sometimes and he, Andy, and Joe write a press release for the band. Pete reads the final copy over Patrick's shoulder while the younger man tries to convince himself that this is somehow all still a terrible joke.

Fall Out Boy is taking a break from the media and the like, it says, and no, they are not auditioning “replacements” at this time. Pete doesn't know if he prefers this to them moving on.

The night the statement’s released, Andy and Joe both come to Patrick's for dinner.

“So, Patrick, I'm not trying to. . . Well, I just. There are some vacancies at the apartment complex not far from my place, and I didn't know if you would maybe want to look at them,” says Andy hesitantly. “Not that there's anything wrong with here, of course, but it might be good to get a place with less. . . history.”

“You could move in with me, too,” Joe offers, and his expression twists something in Pete's heart a little. “Not like. Of course. Just. If you want.”

Patrick nods. “I'll think about it. Moving would just be a lot of stress right now, I think.”

“Right,” says Joe. “But if you want, we'll both be here to help.”

They fall into silence around the small kitchen table, the chair by the window empty as always. Everyone pretends they don't see anyone else's eyes flicking towards it.

After dinner, Patrick, Joe, and Andy migrate to the couch and watch Star Wars. Pete hovers in the corner of the living room, wishing more than anything that he could let them know that he's  _ here. _

“So, um,” Patrick says at some point. “I know we can't just. . . hibernate forever. And I found some of –. Some notebooks.”

Joe immediately shakes his head. “Stop, 'Trick. You need more time. We  _ all  _ do. There's no rush.”

“Joe's right,” Andy puts in. His voice is the most unsteady Pete's ever heard it, and it's the worst feeling in the world for Pete to know that this is all his fault. “None of us are ready for that yet.”

“I know,” Patrick mumbles, and he's clearly trying not to cry. “I just. . . I keep thinking that maybe if we keep going, it'll make this all just stop.”

Joe's blinking away tears as well now. “Fuck, I wish. But it's not going to happen.”

Patrick braces his elbows on his knees and rests his face in his hands, staring at the ground. He doesn't say a word.

“We'll get through this,” Andy murmurs, even though he himself doesn't sound convinced.

Pete has to leave the room, throwing a punch at the wall on the way out. It doesn't even make a sound.

* * *

 

Sometimes, Patrick yells. Pete always leaves when that happens; he doesn't want to have to hear the questions he can't answer. Like  _ why, why did you leave me? Where are you? Why couldn't you stay? Why didn't you just call me that night? Why did you ever think we'd be okay after this? Why didn't you leave a note? Why? _

Sometimes, Pete yells too. He yells when he watches Patrick cry and he can't fix it even though he's _ right here, Trick, I'm here, goddammit. _

But as the weeks since Pete's been gone continue to pile up, Patrick yells less. He looks a little better with every day. The photo of him and Pete on the nightstand gets turned back around.

Pete yells less, too, as he gets more and more used to the fact that there's nothing he can do. The world, whose axis had been violently shifted only eleven months ago, is slowly beginning to turn again.

One night, though, Pete starts to think that maybe the world's turning too fast.

It happens when Joe comes over for what's become a weekly movie night. Pete's actually grown to almost enjoy these evenings, especially when no one's talking so he can pretend it's normal, that he's not dead and hovering next to the couch instead of curled up on it.

Tonight's. . . different, though, somehow. They're watching  _ Back To The Future,  _ which is something they've all done multiple times, but that's not what's off. What's off is the way Patrick's been leaning against Joe since about five minutes into the movie, and the way Joe literally did that  _ terrible, cliché, high school “stretching so I can put my arm around you”  _ _ thing.  _ Joe literally fucking did that. And Patrick fucking  _ let him. _

Pete knows that it's illogical to think that Patrick would never move on, and he really does want Patrick to be happy, but it's just. It's hard to watch.

The movie ends after a while. Pete's been hovering in place with his eyes closed and legs folded up crisscross applesauce, but he opens his eyes slowly when he hears soft murmuring instead of the usual goodbyes.

Patrick and Joe are still leaning against each other, somehow  _ way  _ closer than they were before, and they're leaning their foreheads together in quiet conversation.

(Pete can't help it; he moves a tiny bit closer to the pair so he can make out what they're saying. What can he say? He's kind of a nosy fucker.)

“–just need to try this,” Joe is saying. “Is that okay?”

Patrick looks torn, but he nods. “Okay.”

Joe gently places a hand on Patrick's cheek and kisses him, and Pete is pretty sure his heart literally rips apart when Patrick kisses back.

“I'm sorry,” Patrick says quickly when he pulls away a few seconds later. “I, I want this, I really do, Joe, but-”

“It's alright,” Joe assures him. “It's okay, 'Trick.”

Patrick bites his lip, looking like he's going to say something else, but then he leans in and kisses Joe again.

Pete suddenly feels like he can't breathe, even though he's fucking  _ dead _ and dead people don't breathe. He feels impossibly claustrophobic in the open living room, the mingling sounds of Joe and Patrick's soft breaths pressing down on his ears. So he runs. 

He runs, passing straight through the walls of the apartment and popping out onto the street, six stories up. Pete lets himself float down closer to the ground before continuing to get as far away as possible. He's pretty sure he would be crying if he could.

Eventually, Pete stops in a grassy park that thankfully feels a million miles away. The earth turns imperceptibly under his feet as it starts to carry memories of Pete Wentz away from the world.

* * *

 

Pete doesn't return to Patrick's apartment for what the dates on the newspapers tell him is two years. He mostly stays in the park he found, moping around and still trying to find a way to make his presence known. He's unsuccessful.

One day, though, when a poster tacked up on a lamppost in Pete's park announces that Fall Out Boy will be ending their recent tour with a homecoming show  _ right here in Chicago, featuring their new bassist Alec Fields,  _ Pete decides to start making his way home.

It takes him longer than expected; he knows Chicago pretty damn well, but the park he found is apparently in some large, unfamiliar corner of some large, unfamiliar suburb. He makes it back, though, a couple of days after the date listed on the poster. Pete had briefly considered going to see them play, but he wasn't going to torture himself with watching someone new up on the stage with his best friends, with hearing the ( _ probably much better,  _ he thinks) new music.

Patrick is still living in the same apartment when Pete returns, except. . . it's not the same at all. The haphazard corner of Pete's basses has been cleaned out and filled with neatly organized guitars that Pete recognizes as Joe's. There are new pictures on the walls, of Patrick, Andy, and Joe standing with an attractive guy Pete assumes is Alec, of Joe holding a tiny Labrador puppy in his arms, of Patrick on a picnic blanket, eyes crinkled with laughter.

They're pictures of a life that's moved past the boy still hiding in some of the older photos, the one with the eyeliner that has an arm slung around Patrick's shoulders. And it's been nearly three years but Pete's pretty sure that he regrets killing himself more every day.

The apartment was empty when Pete first got back, but it doesn't take long for Patrick and Joe to come back, hands clasped just casually enough to show that they do it all the time. Pete knows he should've expected this, but it still fucking _ hurts  _ to watch them cook dinner together, exchanging playful kisses and touches as they go.

As he watches Patrick and Joe together, Pete realizes that he doesn't actually know why he came back. Was he expecting Patrick to still be a mess, to be whispering Pete's name on the rare occasion that he slept? Was he expecting that because _ he  _ was stuck in the same state forever, the same would end up applying to everyone else? Was he expecting Patrick to somehow notice him?

Pete finds that he doesn't know, doesn't know much of anything right now, only that he should never have come back, so he flees once more, back to the park he's close to calling home.

And after another six months, Patrick and Joe's engagement hits the tabloids, followed by their wedding and subsequent adoption of a baby girl. The world turns. The picture that used to be on Patrick's nightstand, the one of him and Pete, sits in a yet-to-be-unpacked box in some corner of the Trohman family's new house, gathering dust. The world still turns. And slowly. . . Pete is forgotten. 

(fin.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! feedback makes my day:)
> 
> !!ALSO: I WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN AN AWESOME CHARITY PROJECT COMING THIS OCTOBER, CHECK IT OUT: https://ficagainstfascism.wordpress.com !!


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